“I saw the interview you gave earlier,” I said as Grant tucked his truck into a parking spot.
He jacked his brows a few times. “How did I look?”
“Like you were trying to save the day without looking like you were trying to.” I rolled to a stop as we headed toward the restaurant. I knew why he’d given that “surprise” interview to the local media, and I wanted him to know I knew. “Thank you for doing that.”
His arm jutted out in front of me as a car started to back out of a spot. “Since it was my fault they were there harassing you, I figured it was my job to take care of it.”
Grant didn’t drop his arm until the car was rolling forward. “How do you think they saw us? It was late. You were only there a minute. And The Starlight Hotel doesn’t strike me as the kind of place the media makes a habit of canvasing for pro football players hanging out at while they’re in town.”
Grant led us onto the sidewalk, a smile starting to form when the first whiff of grease and heart disease hit us. “Who knows? The press is everywhere—that’s the motto I’ve adopted. When you least expect them. Where you don’t expect them. They’re everywhere.”
Hearing him talk about it made me think about what it would be like to be followed everywhere you went. I was living about as far from New York City as a person could get, and even I could barely turn on the evening news and not hear something about the Invincible Man, the name he’d earned growing up on the tough streets of The Clink and the name he’d carried into pro football. No one could take him down. Nothing could take the knees out from under the invincible Grant Turner.
“If you knew the media would chase you the way they do, would you have still gone into the pros?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I love football. It’s a part of me. The media part of that world sucks ass, but you have to take the bad with the good. Nothing comes for free, and playing the media game is the price I have to pay to play the game I love.”
I considered that as we roamed around the front of the building. Mickey’s was busy any day, night, or time, and this no exception. The parking lot was packed, and so were most of the booths and stools inside. Already, heads were starting to turn inside the diner, recognition lighting up faces. It wasn’t exactly like Grant Turner blended in with the general population.
“Seems like a steep price to pay,” I said, remembering how overwhelming the media storm I’d woken to today had been. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that every single day, every single place I went.
“It is,” he said matter-of-factly.
My eyebrows pulled together. “Then why do you do it?”
“Because I love football.”
“Yeah, but you hate the media chasing you.”
Grant tipped his head at me like I wasn’t getting it. Maybe I wasn’t, but I couldn’t imagine putting up with something so awful because I loved doing something. “But I love football even more.”
Saying nothing more, he swung the glass door open for me and motioned me inside.
I’d passed through the doors to Mickey’s dozens of times, but never had it felt like this. Like every eye in the place was at on me. Or at what was right behind me.
It was usually really noisy inside, conversations and laughter filling the place, but now all I could hear was the jukebox playing an old Beach Boys song and the spit of burgers sizzling on the grill in back.
Kids were gaping at Grant as if Superman had just flown his spandexed ass out of the sky, women were admiring him in a way I was all too familiar with, and everyone else had been struck with a serious case of hero-worship. Even back when we’d been teenagers, Grant’s name held a certain degree of awe in the area. He was setting records in high school football as a freshman, and even then, I think most of us knew we were watching a great in the making.
But now, the prodigal hometown hero had returned, and all at once, it felt like every last diner in Mickey’s was reaching for their camera phones and digging around in purses for a stray pen.
“Shit. Should have gone with the drive-thru,” Grant whispered to me, putting on a smile for the crowd.
“Too late for that now, Invincible Man.”
He gave me an unamused look when I glanced back at him.
“Well? What are you going to do now?” I asked as bodies started rising out of chairs.
Giving me a look that suggested I was clueless, he tipped his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, everyone! I’ve got a box of signed jerseys in the bed of my truck!” Grant pointed out the window where his truck was gleaming in the parking lot. “Help yourselves!”